I've looked through many of the excellent guides that describe station and complex building. The matching of production rates of different factories have been described quite extensively. The behaviour of solar power plants and how they differ from the rest of the factories has been explained too. However, there is an another "non-conforming" factory and that is the mine. It is a safe bet to say that a mine on an asteroid with yield 26 is sufficient. That is not the whole truth. One can save on station costs by placing the mine on a higher-yield asteroid, because then that mine can support more factories. The question is how much more? And are the low-yield asteroids worth any?

The production rate of mines is calculated from the yield of the asteroid exactly as it was done in X2.

And how was it in X2 / is in X3?

There is a BASETIME, which is 2400 seconds (40 minutes) for Silicon and 600 seconds (10 minutes) for Ore. Fab_size is 2 for M, and 5 for L.

The purpose of the Multiplier is to prevent the cycle time to be shorter than 60 seconds.

Note too that the division for Basic_cycletime has (Yield + 1) and not just Yield. Put a mine on a roid of wrong type, and you get yield of 0. Division with 0 would be problematic. However, this has a side-effect: when you have several asteroids, their total production is slightly more than just the sum of their yields. For example, yields 12 and 14 produce almost as much as one yield 27. Four yield 8 mines produce almost as much as one yield 35 mine. Almost.

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One Silicon Wafer costs 24 ECells to mine. Ore mine consumes 6 ECells per 1 Ore produced. It takes the common 900 ECells to mine the Ore consumed by a weapon factory in one hour. It does not matter what the yield and cycle times are. One unit of mineral costs always the same amount of energy.
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Lets go back to that "how much is much?" question. One Silicon wafer is consumed in 1:36. With the equation above we see that it takes 1:37 from yield 24 mine to produce that one wafer. One second too slow. But we have no such mines. We have M and L mines. But a M mine would still produce the two silicons required by M crystal fab one second too slow. However, yield 25 mine produces that same wafer in 1:33, three seconds faster than necessary. Thus, yield 24 is slightly too slow but yield 25 is already faster than the standard rate of wafer (and ore) consuming factories.

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Time is difficult to deal with. How about presenting mine yield as how many factories it can support?

Lets make a stab at it:
Lets have a Fab_unit. Say Fab_unit=96s for Silicon and Fab_unit=24s for Ore. Continuing from the equations above:

From this we get that if the Efficiency is 1,00 then the Mine M has Fab_equiv of 2,0 and the Mine L has Fab_equiv of 5,0. Crystal Fab M consumes silicon at Fab_equiv=2, so one Mine M with Efficiency=1,0 is sufficient to support it.

If we do try some numbers, we notice that yield 25 Ore roid has Efficiency=1,0 and yields 50,51,52,53 all have Efficiency=2,0. Ore is so very simple.

Ore mine M on a 25 roid does produce 6 Ore in 72 seconds. Its Basic_cycletime is 24s. Tech fabs do consume 3 Ore in 72s.

The Silicon is the tough one. Basic_cycletime for yield 24 is 97s, so Efficiency is only 0,99. It is that one second. Yield 25 has Efficiency=96s/93s=1,03, and yield 26 has Efficiency=96s/89s=1,08. The nice part here is that with Silicon mine L the Fab_equiv is 5*1,08=5,39. Remember that Crystal Fab M consumes 2 anyway and that SPP is a tiny bit faster than Crystal Fab? If you build 3 Crystal Fab Ms, you will be able to consume all the wafers (but may run out occasionally). However, the amount of crystals is garanteed to supply one SPP L. It is possible, however, that the "sunlight" value of the sectors change at some point. That may make some SPPs run faster. That should not be a problem.
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Why do the other guides then tend to recommend yield 26 asteroids? For one, they are common. They are sufficient. They are closer to the wafer consumption of the solar power plants. The SPP is, after all, faster than crystal fab, if only by one second. Unfortunately, we can not have fractional stations. The only way to get the most out of all, is to have a set of mines that produces X wafers in unit of time and a different set of crystal fabs that consumes exactly X wafers in unit of time, and then have enough SPPs to consume exactly the amount of crystals produced in unit of time. That means big complex. I do not know, whether that is even possible, asteroid yields being what they are.

What is important to note is that one can add up the production of several mines and figure out how many factories that can support. A low yield mine may seem like waste of money, but it may all that is needed to supply your next PPC factory.

Asteroids are a limited natural resource. Once they are all mined, the limit has been reached. One can always fill the space with factories, but without mines they remain empty. IMO a medium mine is waste of natural resources. Save for the large one.

For those, who cannot do elementary arithmetics, not even with free spreadsheets around, here is a table, where yield and corresponding Fab_equiv are listed. (Read this many factories the yield can support.)

From the notes I have here, it does appear that the Teladi produce the cheapest mines for both ore and silicon. I have not confirmed this in game however.

Interesting post, thank you.

Cyteen out

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end?"

jlehtone wrote:Asteroids are a limited natural resource. Once they are all mined, the limit has been reached. One can always fill the space with factories, but without mines they remain empty. IMO a medium mine is waste of natural resources. Save for the large one.

Are you saying that

1. asteroids run out of ore

or

2. once every asteriod in the entire universe has a mine, you will reach a limit of ore for the whole universe (but it wont run out..)

??

if its #1, thats a bummer. if its #2, ... to paraprase a movie line from the 1980's, "how many yachts can you ski from anyway??"

2. once every asteriod in the entire universe has a mine, you will reach a limit of ore for the whole universe (but it wont run out..)

??

if its #1, thats a bummer. if its #2, ... to paraprase a movie line from the 1980's, "how many yachts can you ski from anyway??"

Yes, that is the theoretical limit, and the mines never run dry.

But, if things go as in X2, you can blow up a mine and it will be gone for good. Even the AI can do that now. Besides, I have never even considered building mines in the Kha'ak sectors.

And then there is the local market. The North-Western sectors are pretty empty from asteroids. One should not overlook the small roids that remain. With Large Mines one can still set up good complexes on them. A yield 10 mine L is about as productive as yield 25 mine M, and a yield 12 mine M can support one high-tech fab.

The amount of ore and wafers is almost fivefold from what it was in X2. Not bad.

Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

jlehtone wrote:The "scale" of production is x2, x5, and x10 for M, L, and XL. There are no XL mines. The scale affects the stock size and the number of products per cycle. It does not affect the cycle time.

Thus, mine M and mine L (on same yield) have exactly the same cycle time. However, the L will produce 2.5 times more than M in one cycle.

L is not faster than M, but is does produce more.

Effectively the same, but since factories do produce in fixed-time cycles, one cannot be faster.

The Basic_cycletime goes down, it is 61 seconds for yield 39 and 59 seconds for yield 40.

However, cycletimes below 60 seconds are not allowed. Therefore both the Basic_cycletime and products per cycle are multiplied by an integer. Yield 40 mine thus produces in one cycle (in 118 seconds) the same amount as yield 39 mine produces in two cycles (in 122 seconds). That multiplier and "bump" are merely cosmetic.

Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

augustini wrote:Can you place more than 1 mine on a roid? can you for instance place 2 or 3 mines?

No, only one mine per roid. Actually, building a mine on a roid removes that roid and puts a mine object in its place.
However, an Ore mine L on a 25-yield roid can already support 5 weapon/shield/missile factories. As is, some sectors can support huge complexes.

Just the thought that big complexes are (a) sure way to low fps in sector, and (b) probably primary target for Khaak task forces, sounds tempting.

Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.